Crown of Cinders
Chapter Three: Whispers in the Wild
Nyra hadn't realized how loud the world could be when you had no place to belong.
Every broken branch underfoot, every rustle in the trees felt like a threat. As they traveled deeper into the Wildroot Wood, a thick mist began to roll in, coiling around the roots like fingers. The trees here grew twisted, bark blackened as if scorched in ancient fire. No birds sang. No breeze stirred. Only silence—heavy, waiting.
"There's something wrong with this forest," Nyra murmured.
Tairn nodded, sword unsheathed and ready. "It's old magic. Wildroot's been cursed since the Fall of Emberhold. No one who walks this path walks alone."
She glanced at him. "We're being followed?"
"Watched. There's a difference."
They pressed on.
By dusk, the path turned narrow and overgrown. Strange symbols were etched into the bark of the trees—some glowing faintly with red or violet light. Nyra paused beside one, drawn to it. The mark on her palm pulsed in answer.
"Tairn," she said. "These symbols—they feel alive."
"They are. Warnings. Wards." He stepped beside her. "They say: 'Beware the Hollow Queen.'"
Nyra shivered. "Who's that?"
He gave no answer.
As darkness swallowed the forest, they made camp in a small clearing surrounded by stone ruins. Moss-covered pillars, half-sunk in the soil, suggested the bones of an ancient temple. Nyra knelt beside one, brushing away the moss to reveal more of the spiral flame sigil—just like the one on her palm.
"This was Flamebound," she said.
Tairn nodded. "A sanctuary. Long abandoned. But you can still hear the whispers if you listen."
She tilted her head. For a moment, she thought she could hear something too: not voices, exactly, but murmurs in the wind. Like breath against stone. Like memory made sound.
"What happened here?"
"The Regent didn't just kill your bloodline," he said. "He burned your history. Erased every temple, every trace of your magic. He was terrified of what it could become if it awakened."
Nyra turned toward him. "Why?"
"Because your ancestors didn't rule by armies. They ruled by fire and spirit. And the Phoenix Flame—it doesn't obey kings. It chooses."
She looked again at the mark on her hand. "Then why me?"
"Because you survived," he said simply. "And maybe that's enough."
They were silent for a long time.
Then something moved in the trees.
Tairn was on his feet instantly, blade drawn. "Stay behind me."
But the figure that stepped out of the mist wasn't a soldier. It was a woman—cloaked in rags, face half-covered by a veil of feathers and ash. Her eyes were milky white, her bare feet silent as smoke.
Nyra stepped forward, heart thundering. "Who are you?"
The woman didn't answer. She raised a bony hand and pointed at Nyra's palm.
"The flame stirs," she whispered. Her voice was wind and gravel. "The line lives. The Hollow Queen watches."
Tairn stepped forward. "Back away."
But the woman ignored him. She knelt suddenly, lowering her head. "Daughter of fire, you walk on bones and cinders. The Phoenix calls, but so does the Grave Flame."
"What's the Grave Flame?" Nyra asked.
The woman looked up, and for a moment her eyes were not blind—but burning. "The one that answers when the light dies. He waits beneath the throne."
Before Nyra could respond, the woman stood and backed into the mist.
"Wait!" Nyra called. "What do you mean? Who is the Hollow Queen? Who's beneath the throne?"
But the woman was already gone.
That night, Nyra couldn't sleep. Her dreams were full of fire again—but this time, they were different. She saw a woman wrapped in a cloak of thorns and smoke, her crown made of bone, sitting atop a throne of black flame. Her eyes glowed red. Her lips curled in a smile.
"You burn so brightly," the woman whispered. "But even fire dies in the dark."
Nyra woke with a cry, drenched in sweat. Tairn was already up, watching her.
"What did you see?" he asked.
She told him.
He didn't speak for a long time. Finally, he said, "The Hollow Queen was once one of your ancestors. A Flamebound who fell to corruption. She tried to merge the Ember Flame with death magic. It destroyed her mind—and nearly the realm."
"She's still alive?"
"Not alive," Tairn said. "But not gone, either."
Nyra swallowed hard. "And she's watching me?"
"She wants what's in your blood."
By morning, the mist had thickened to a choking fog. Tairn led them through it with a compass made of bronze and ashwood, its needle glowing faintly red.
After hours of silent walking, the trees began to thin. Ahead, Nyra could see the silhouette of a towering stone arch carved into a cliffside.
"The Temple of Cindralis," Tairn said.
They had reached their first destination.
But as they stepped beneath the archway, Nyra's mark flared again—and the temperature dropped.
Something old was waking beneath the stone.
Something that remembered fire.